略說烏克蘭語

［水巷葦編］普京愛強調俄羅斯人與烏克蘭人同種同文亦同教，不必分得那麼細。講到同文，他引述十七世紀的基輔加里奇大總主教魯茨基（Josyf Rutsky）的觀察，指出兩地人書面語一樣，僅僅口語上有微不足道的偏差，就好比意大利中部與北部居民之別。現今擁護普京的人多持類近想法，有人說烏克蘭語純屬虛構，正如烏克蘭族子虛烏有一樣。

講到兩語異同，最近讀到耶魯大學教授施奈德（Timothy Snyder）別開生面的見解。他認為烏克蘭就與世上其他國族一般，或許更加有趣。而烏克蘭的特色正正體現在全國上下都掌握雙語，隨時可「語碼轉換」（code switch）。他形容烏克蘭基本上就是個語碼轉換國，而這種常態於俄國及美國卻屬例外。

And if anything, like what makes Ukrainians a bit different than, let's say, Americans and for that matter, Russians, is that they are bilingual and they will code switch. And so it's not so much like the Ukrainian language. I mean, they have the Ukrainian language, and that does make them different. It's their language and it has a beautiful literary tradition and it's a beautiful spoken language. But they also have the capacity which the Russians lack, which we lack, is the ability to code switch. I shouldn’t say we because some Americans can, there are plenty of Americans that are bilingual. But Ukraine is basically a whole nation of code switchers. And it's that thing also which makes them a little bit different and hard for us to understand.

欲知現狀，必具史識。普京卻成長於一九七零年代，正值蘇聯努力抹走烏克蘭特色之時。因此普京會視普天之下皆俄羅斯，會覺得人人心底都渴望做俄國人操俄國語，也就不足奇怪了。

But when Brezhnev takes control from the late 60s and especially from the early 70s forwards, ou have a policy of a very deliberate Russification in Ukraine. And it's at that moment the 1970s that are so important for understanding the present, because that's when people like Putin grew up. You know, so Putin's perspective that everything is basically Russian and like, you know, eveyone really speaks Russian, and even if they seem not to, they really want to. That's a very 1970s perspective on all of this.

所謂烏克蘭的特色當然非烏克蘭獨有。受大國壓迫的角落天下何其多？